Light emitting diodes can be produced based on larger bandgap semiconductor materials, such as III-nitride materials including AlN, GaN, AlGaN, InGaN, InAlN, InAlGaN, and others. However, doping these materials to achieve high hole concentration is difficult because the activation energy of dopants in these larger bandgap materials is relatively high. Additionally, high aluminum containing p-type doped III-nitride materials have poor hole transport properties. When homogeneous III-nitride materials are used on the p-side of a light emitting diode (LED), the device voltages increases to very high values as the aluminum molar fraction exceeds 30%. Consequently, most ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (UV LEDs) utilize low aluminum-containing materials on their p-side, despite the fact that such layers are optically absorbing at the emission wavelength. Such a strategy enables lower device operating voltages, but sacrifices emitted light to optical loss.